Conference files, lot 60 D 627, CF 238

Memorandum of Conversation 1

top secret

Participants:

  • The Secretary of State
  • Ambassador Aldrich
  • Minister Butterworth
  • Mr. Livingston T. Merchant
  • The Rt. Hon. Anthony Eden
  • Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick
  • Sir Harold Caccia

Mr. Eden opened the discussion by saying he had just received a message from the British Mission to the UN in New York indicating that Nehru was thinking of depositing at the United Nations his proposal for a moratorium on H-bomb tests.2 Mr. Eden said he supposed this would create no particular difficulty, and he assumed Nehru’s paper would be turned over to some Subcommittee. He thought it would be very dramatic and advantageous if, however, we could give an affirmative response at Geneva.

The Secretary then said that he would recapitulate the discussion on the subject of atomic and hydrogen bombs he had had with Mr. Eden last evening.3 About two weeks ago he had raised the possibility with the President of exploring a cessation of hydrogen bomb tests when the present series had been completed. He said that the President had asked Admiral Strauss to study the matter; that he had discussed this subject with Admiral Strauss and subsequently with Admiral Radford the day of his departure from Washington; but that he had not had an opportunity to go into the matter in any definitive detail. He mentioned that the present series should be over by early May.

The Secretary went on to say that in considering the possibility of an agreement with the Soviets for a mutual termination of further thermo-nuclear tests, two difficult questions presented themselves. The first was how would any such agreement be policed. The second was how and where one would draw the line between explosions which were permissible and those which were non-permissible.

The Secretary said that the President had given his general approval [Page 500] to an exploration of this line of thought but that the President had not yet discussed it with nor had the benefit of advice from his technical experts on the subject.

The Secretary said that in light of the expected absence from Washington of the President for ten days, it was doubtful that the United States Government could move very rapidly in this matter. In any event, the Secretary said, the process would take time. It would require, for example, thorough consultation with the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Matters. In passing, the Secretary said that he had had lunch last Saturday with Senator Hickenlooper of the Joint Congressional Committee and that while he had touched on the matter, he had not gone into this subject deeply with him.

Mr. Eden said that there was a major difficulty in attempting to devise any form of control which would in fact bind the Russians. “They always cheat.”

The Secretary said that it might well be possible to set up a neutral group or commission of Scandinavian scientists to watch for violations. He said that they had scientists in this field but that to enable them to be effective it would probably be necessary to make available to them certain knowledge and techniques which the Russians probably possess. We cannot, however, be sure on this last point.

Mr. Eden agreed and, referring to the difficulties the Swiss and the Swedes on the Commission in Korea were having in attempting to police the armistice terms in a small area such as North Korea, noted the multiplication of such difficulties in an area as vast as Siberia. Mr. Eden, it is believed, understood that the type of supervision under discussion would rely on recordings, collection, etc., rather than on travel and physical inspection.

The Secretary went on to say that a year or so ago it had appeared that the Soviets had perhaps nearly caught up with us on the hydrogen bomb but that in the interval the United States had put on a spurt which leads us to believe we are now well in advance of them.

At this point, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick interjected that it was his understanding that the explosion a year ago of the Russians was not a hydrogen explosion but a hybrid and that it was not a bomb.

Mr. Eden said he took it we were both agreed that we should attempt to exclude the “big bangs” if it is possible to draw the line.

The Secretary said that both the British Government and ourselves presumably would study the general subject which he had raised. He said, however, that it was unlikely that we would have come to any conclusion before the Geneva Conference opened.

The Secretary then said that there was nothing new to report on the Zarubin talks. The Russians, presumably, are still studying our concrete proposal.

At this point, the Secretary raised the entire subject of the tactical [Page 501] use of atomic weapons and fitting them into our military planning and strategy. He said that sometime ago the National Security Council had decided that atomic tactical weapons should be incorporated as a matter of course into our military planning and armament. Recently, however, our Joint Chiefs of Staff had felt uncertain about the dependability of this decision in the light of some evidence that certain of our Allies apparently continued to draw a sharp line of distinction between the use of conventional weapons and atomic weapons. For obvious reasons, the Secretary said, this raised the most serious problems. In the first place, the Soviets, according to our information, possess tactical atomic weapons. (Eden and Kirkpatrick nodded agreement, though Kirkpatrick said their information was that their numbers at the moment were limited.) It was obviously reckless for us to contemplate a refusal to prepare ourselves to use atomic tactical weapons in the face of this situation. The Russians have clear-cut superiority over us in manpower and conventional weapons. Were we to tie our own hands behind our back in this atomic area, where we have superiority, we would all be at the mercy of blackmail.

Moreover, the question intruded would it be necessary for us to maintain two separate military establishments, one along conventional lines and the other based on the integration of atomic weapons with conventional forces. Should we have one fleet of submarines atomically powered and designed to launch atomic missiles while we supported still another fleet of conventional submarines? We are spending, even after certain economies, nearly 40 billion dollars a year for our defense budget. The theory of duplicate military establishments would come close to doubling this expenditure. This, in turn, would force us to forego any thought of balancing our budget, and state regimentation would result along the lines of a garrison state. These, the Secretary said, were the nature and the magnitude of the problems which were raised.

. . . . . . .

  1. Source text does not indicate identity of the drafting officer; it does indicate that copies of this memorandum were to be circulated “Eyes Only” to S/S, Under Secretary Smith, Murphy, Bowie, Arneson, MacArthur, and Merchant with S/S instructed to furnish copies on an “Eyes Only” basis to Admirals Radford and Strauss.
  2. Documentation on U.S. disarmament policy is in volume II.
  3. At a meeting on the evening of Apr. 11, Dulles had spoken to Eden about the possibility of a moratorium on nuclear testing by the United States following completion of currently planned tests in the Pacific (Memorandum of conversation, by MacArthur, Apr. 11, 1954, Conference files, lot 60 D 627, CF 238).